BSP chief Mayawati on Wednesday announced that Rajya Sabha members Rajaram and Veer Singh, both Dalits, will be renominated to the Upper House in the upcoming elections.

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The party will face maximum loss as the term of six of its MPs is ending next month but it can send only two of its leaders to the Rajya Sabha.

The BJP, which won all 17 seats reserved for scheduled castes this summer, could dent the BSP’s traditional support base. Which is why BSP has decided to field Rajaram, a Jatav from Azamgarh in eastern UP, and Singh, a Jatav from Moradabad in west UP, is to assuage Jatavs, party’s main supporters among Dalits, especially in communally-scarred west UP.

“BSP is unable to send one representative each from SC, OBC, Muslim and upper caste sections to RS because of reduction in its strength in the Assembly. And if a member from any other section except SC will be elected, the other sections will feel sidelined. So, the party has decided to repeat both members who are from party’s support base of Dalits,” Mayawati said.

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Rajaram, who first became RS member in 2008, and Singh, who will get elected for the third term, are long-time BSP workers and oversee party affairs in four and three states respectively.

Four sitting members, who have been denied ticket, are Brajesh Pathak, a Brahmin, Brijlal Khabri, a Dalit from Bundelkhand, Avtar Singh Karimpuri, a Dalit from Punjab, and Das.

Mayawati also said her party will contest Assembly elections in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir without any alliances. She termed the visit of PM Narendra Modi to Varanasi as part of an ongoing drama (natakbazi).

Replying to a question about construction of a flyover near her residence by the Akhilesh Yadav government, she said this shows SP’s “lowly, shallow and dirty” politics.